


I took my Power in my hand

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: F/M, Inspired By Tumblr, Prompt Fill, Reference to Shakespeare, Romance, Tumblr Prompt, correction, handwashing, math!Mary, never miss a chance to mock Byron Hale, pandemic fic, sexy handwashing, was the request, wise Matron Brannan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:07:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23204431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: It wouldn't do to consider just what it was that had spilled. It was war, it was a kitchen with a corrupt steward, it was a rapidly warming April in Virginia and the man she wasn't supposed to have any finer feelings for was looking at her quizzically.
Relationships: Jedediah "Jed" Foster/Mary Phinney
Comments: 10
Kudos: 13
Collections: Lock Down Fest





	I took my Power in my hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fericita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fericita/gifts).



“That had to have been Hale’s fault—there’s never been such a slovenly boor in the whole of the United States Army. I believe even the vermin find him disgusting,” Jed said conversationally, as if they had been discussing the merits of Mr. Dickens and Mr. Thackeray over glasses of a more-than-passable claret. In actuality, he was leaning against the doorway of Mansion House’s dank larder, regarding Mary with a wry expression while she wished more than anything to brush back the loose hair that was stuck to her damp cheeks. She daren’t risk it.

“You’re filthy, Nurse Mary,” he went on, really enjoying saying the word _filthy_ , enough that he’d felt he must remind them both of their situation by invoking her title. If her pinafore were not sodden with an indeterminate but extremely nauseating effluvia, her hands caked with whatever noxious mélange had spilled over from the unbalanced pot she’d barely caught before it flooded the whole floor, she might not have been bothered. She’d been cultivating an imperturbable equanimity regarding Jed since she arrived and had gotten involved in a gunfight, surely not what Miss Dix expected of her.

“Your acuity is astounding, Dr. Foster,” she replied acidly. She ought to have maintained a sweet, tranquil tone, but she had her limits and they had been surpassed. 

“Now, now, what’s this? This return to formality doesn’t suit the situation in the slightest and I feel confident saying that as a gentleman,” Jed said. But instead of his usual smirk or grin, his smile was warm, very charming and shockingly sincere.

“I’m—what do you want, Jed? As you can see, I’m…in a bit of a muddle,” Mary said. Her hair was falling down and tickling her neck, most annoyingly.

“That’s what you’re calling it? A muddle? Is that Yankee or Phinney?”

“Is there a difference as far as you’re concerned?” Mary snapped. He laughed then, loudly but not meanly, and she couldn’t help smiling at him.

“No, madam. You’ve got me there. But I might be able to help,” he said, walking towards her, his hands in what must be a universal gesture of offering aid. He managed to look elegant and at-ease and she was covered in some grotesque sludge she’d needed every ounce of her New England upbringing to keep from retching over. She thought of the long, snowy nights of January on the farm, the fields and the sky so coolly pale they became one, ice on the water in the wash-basin, ice scalloping the brook; the ordure she was drenched in still stank to high heaven.

“No, I’ll be all right, I only need—”

“Mary, be serious—"

“Whatever Heracles used to cleanse the Augean stables?” she interrupted.

“The rivers Alpheus and Peneus. I’m rather taken aback you didn’t know,” he countered. 

“My studies ran towards the mathematical, not the mythological,” Mary retorted. She suppressed the urge to stamp her foot or straighten her repellent apron.

“I stand corrected,” he said, almost chastened. And far too handsome though his hair needed a trim and his collar starch. His waistcoat, as ever, was a gaily patterned silk every one of the camp followers she treated would sigh over.

“Do you want something, Jed?” Mary asked. “I don’t see how I may help just now, but perhaps I’m being unimaginative.”

“My wants are beside the point in the face of what is needful. For you,” he said, inclining his head towards her hands, her ruined clothing, drab even before it became disgusting.

“I’ll be fine, you needn’t trouble yourself,” she said.

“How will you extricate yourself without assistance?” he said. 

“I’ll make do, it’s nothing to do with you,” she replied.

“There I disagree. As chief medical officer, I have obligations. Duties,” he said solemnly, stepping close, then behind her. She felt the subtle pull at her waist as he worked to unknot the sash of her apron, his hands very briefly laid against her stays, and then grazing her shoulder blades as he eased the garment off. He was taller than she was, not exceedingly, but she forgot it until he stood so near; she resisted the sudden urge to lean back against him, to feel his breath soft against her neck. He smelled of vetiver, of sweet pipe-smoke, comfort and incitement. She felt her heart thudding in her chest.

“All done,” she said. It was supposed to sound firm, non-nonsense, but somehow the words were like a question. _Are you all done?_ There was a notable pause before he spoke which meant, for once, he was considering his response. A blasted miracle, Matron would say, shaking her head at Henry Hopkins’s earnest, furrowed brow, _I know from miracles, boyo, oh a long, long time before you were made or drew breath_. 

“How will you keep from sullying anything you touch with your hands in that state?”

“I won’t. I’ll simply have to clean up after myself. Unlike Dr. Hale, I’m familiar with that,” Mary said.

“You don’t have to, Mary,” Jed said. They were nearly beside the large sink, the pump like a dragon’s curved neck in the dimming light. It was an incongruous luxury, a sign of how wealthy the Greens had been before the War, that the hotel had running water in the kitchen and not simply a well and myriad slop buckets.

“What?”

“Let me. Otherwise, it will take too long,” Jed said, glancing at her hands. Oh! He meant—he meant to help her wash, as if she were a child or a patient too ill to care for themselves.

“I don’t think—”

“Please.” How had he managed to make that word anything but a question? When it was not a demand? His dark eyes were steady, rare enough, but his lips were not shaped to any mockery or amusement. He was serious for once. She recognized how dangerous that was.

“I suppose,” she muttered.

“Good. Come here,” he instructed and she extended her hands towards the space where the water must flow. There was soft soap in a dish, a pale, brown color like a melted tallow taper, but before she could take some into her palm, Jed had done it, pressing her hands together with his own.

“Oh.” It was nearly a word, the form of her sigh, of the breath that went out of her at the touch of Jed’s hands. His eyes moved to hers but she didn’t shake her head or pull away.

She might have guessed he’d have a gentle touch; she’d seen him operate on a boy’s eyelid, on the lacy webbing that made up a thumb, on a thyroid with its fragile wings spread atop a man’s trachea. She might have guessed his hands would be confident, strong, clever, deft. She’d been a sweetheart and a wife before, she might have supposed something homely could be a caress, even more stirring than a declaration or a kiss.

She was unprepared for any of it. All of it. Jed’s hands holding hers, slowly rubbing the soap into a lather against her palms, tracing the outline of her hands, the taper of her fingers; he was very deliberate, very thorough, managing to pump water over both her hands held in one of his, the cool water making her even more aware of his warmth. The heat of him, the electric stroke of his skin. If Jed had had the task, perhaps Lady Macbeth would not have rued her permanent stain, Mary though a little wildly, feeling her hands tremble in his grasp and knowing he must feel it too. She should have jerked away but she only wanted to lean closer, to feel his fingers sneak beneath her sleeves, to bring her curled fingers up to his lips. To coax her to put her arms around him, her hands fondling the curls at the back of his neck.

“M’sorry. The soap’s not very good and there’s no brush for your nails, short as they are,” he said quietly. “There was a Scotsman, when I was in Edinburgh—”

“There would be one there,” Mary interjected. She was interrupting herself more than Jed; he glanced at her and saw it. Such a gleam came into his eyes then, she knew he’d understood, even better than she had.

“Yes, of course,” Jed said, now massaging her hands which were white again under the diminishing suds. It was unnecessary and she felt she’d die if he stopped. “I’d been in Paris and they broke up for the summer, so I went to Scotland, a lark I thought, and this physician was on and on about washing. Well, cleanliness is next to godliness and his patients didn’t die, so I thought I’d do the same.”

“That’s why you patients live and Dr. Hale’s don’t?” 

“No, his die because he’s a hack. Pun intended, more’s the pity for the poor boys he operates on. Though, his dirty hands can’t help,” Jed replied. It shouldn’t have made her breathless, his regular condemnation of his colleague, but her hands were clean now and so were his and still he touched her, lightly, sure, with such care…

“This is probably the freshest linen in this place,” he said, taking his handkerchief out and using it to pat her hands dry. It wasn’t big enough, so her hands were still damp after the linen was wet through, balled up in his fist.

“I can launder that for you,” she said, reaching for it.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, but she rested her fingertips on his knuckles and didn’t draw back.

“You must allow me, it’s only fair,” she said. How could his dark eyes become darker? For they did and she felt the pull of it.

“As if fairness was ever something between us,” he said, quite low. “If you want it, it’s yours, Mary. Anything you want.”

“It isn’t that…” She couldn’t finish the sentence because she wasn’t telling the truth. Not entirely. She knew her duty. And she also knew that she would keep the square of linen longer than she ought, rubbing the silk thread of his monogram between her fingers. Wanting something of his close enough to touch.

“Perhaps not for you, then. For me,” he said, shaming her with his candor.

“You’re not wrong,” she said softly. He might have embraced her then and she would have done more than let him, she would have met his kiss with her own, sought his pleasure with her own escalating, irresistible desire. 

Jed only looked at her hands, loosely clasped in front of her. She was revealed to him. He lifted his eyes to catch her gaze and she saw everything she felt in his own expression. All her longing and lust and tenderness and something else, something nameless that came from his suffering and hers and the War’s, all around them. 

“Ah, well. I’m bound to be occasionally,” he said.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” she replied.

“It’s not my head I’m worried about around you, Mary,” he answered. There was a moment when either of them might have spoken, to quip or counter, but they were silent, each feeling how their hearts beat within them. Each wishing the other might know, one hand laid there to discover the truth that didn’t require words.

**Author's Note:**

> Fericita asked for "sexy handwashing" and I decided it was sexiest if Jed actually WASHED. MARY'S. HANDS. No gazing or glimpsing. He's doing the work himself.
> 
> I played a little fast and a little loose with Joseph Lister, whom Jed does not refer to by name but clearly means. 
> 
> Title from Emily Dickinson because she always has one for you.


End file.
